Tobacco Spraying Proposal Attacked

June 28, 2001|By DON STACOM; Courant Staff Writer

ENFIELD — Citing a history of violations by Enfield Shade Tobacco, state environmental protection officials Wednesday said they'd require the company to agree to unprecedented precautions if it wants to spray pesticides from a helicopter this summer.

But residents near the company's fields told the state Department of Environmental Protection that they're not satisfied. They insisted the DEP should bar the company from aerial spraying, and some complained that the agency is putting Enfield Shade Tobacco's profits ahead of citizens' health.

``You're talking about a helicopter full of chemicals flying over our town -- that's terrifying to me. It makes no sense. Why wouldn't you deny this permit?'' council member Carol Hall asked three DEP officials at a meeting at town hall Wednesday night.

Nearly 50 homeowners joined town council members in alternately questioning and scolding the DEP officials during the three-hour session.

When the DEP representatives and state Department of Health toxicologist Gary Ginsberg acknowledged that they do not have extensive data on the long-term effects of some tobacco pesticides, Charnley Road resident Paul Dubreuil said, ``I don't think we should be used as guinea pigs.''

Enfield Shade Tobacco is the only tobacco grower in Connecticut seeking permission for helicopter pesticide spraying this year, according to DEP environmental analyst Brad Robinson. The company's application is not complete, but the DEP probably will act on it quickly once it's ready, Robinson said.

The company wants to spray about 180 acres of fields to kill insects and to prevent blue mold fungus, owner Ken Chickosky has said previously. He did not attend Wednesday night's forum.

The company listed the fungicide Alliette along with several other chemicals on its application. Robinson said Alliette does not carry the necessary federal certification, though, and won't be allowed. Addressing residents' continued questions about reports that another pesticide on the application, Acrobat MZ, might contain a carcinogen, Ginsberg said that occasional light exposures should not present a danger.

``The hazard is not only toxicity but dosage. At the dosage that bystanders are likely to get, the risk is clearly not unacceptable -- let me rephrase that, the risk is acceptable,'' Ginsberg said.

Robinson said that if the permit is approved, Enfield Shade Tobacco would be required to record details of the crop-dusting flights with a global positioning system and hire a DEP-certified analyst to perform spot checks of the spraying operations. Those conditions would be unprecedented in the state, he said.

Mayor Mary Lou Strom suggested that since the company has already been fined more than $12,000 for previous violations -- it has been cited by the DEP for at least two violations, and the pilot who would do the spraying has been fined for two others -- it should face a stiffer penalty for any future ones. Council member Lewis Fiore suggested that any aerial-spraying permit that might be approved be permanently revoked if new violations occur.

Enfield Shade Tobacco has run into residents' opposition in Ellington and other parts of Enfield when it used a plane to spray crops in previous years, but most of the current complaints are from homeowners along a field on Charnley Road that the company plans to spray this year.

On Wednesday night, Robinson said the Enfield Shade Tobacco is seeking permission to spray nine separate fields this summer: Two in Somers, one on the Enfield-Somers line, and six more in eastern Enfield, including the Charnley Road property.